Letter to the Editor: Lawmakers the ones to blame for Connecticut budget mess

Published 1:15 pm, Friday, May 27, 2016

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Letter to the Editor: Lawmakers the ones to blame for Connecticut budget mess

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Reading the May 14 article on the state budget, I became irked by the comment “There’s no one to blame for the current budget situation, according to Democratic lawmakers.” Really? How about overspending year after year and wasting money on useless projects?

Let me cite one example I see every day on the way to work: the Putnam Bridge renovation. The project took close to two and a half years, and at least six months of that was iron work performed in the dead of winter to add a pedestrian footpath. All work was completed over six months ago, and the path is still closed. There are signs saying “No Trespassing,” and “Closed.” This is no real inconvenience to the public, however, because the path is literally from nowhere to nowhere. The Wethersfield side is locked for the most part between I-91 and other connecting highways, and the Glastonbury side is nearly a mile across swampy land to any kind of development. There is no access to the footpath. Notice that I said footpath. I remember reading when work was starting that due to construction limitations that the path could not be made as wide as initially desired; bicyclists are expected to walk their bikes across the bridge. Will anyone ever use this path?

Whoever approved this wasteful spending and other projects like this are definitely to blame. The Democrats who have held overwhelming power in the legislature for years, along with any complicit Republicans, should look in the mirror to see the cause of the current budget woes.